Mr. McQueen was a showman with very high expectations for fashion. He knew how to cut a dress, a jacket and a pair of pants with the best of them, but that was not enough for him. He also wanted fashion to have weight and content and depth, so he put on presentations - spectacles, really - of his collections that aimed to have the punch of art and that were sometimes political, sociological, shocking and scary.

''I believe in depicting what's going on," he once said. "I'm a big anarchist. I don't believe in religion, or in another human being wanting to govern over someone else. The themes that go through my shows will continue to."

Some of this content carried over to the clothes themselves, either literally or in their aura. But in general their distinguishing features were beauty; a sense of craft; a strong, confident silhouette; and the marriage of tradition with the avant-garde.

Mr. McQueen was born in London in 1969, the youngest of six children and the son of a taxi driver. His was the classic story of the kid from the other side of the tracks making it big. As a young boy of Scottish descent growing up in England, he showed a passion for fashion by the age of 3. He was called ''McQueer'' in school, and his father expected him to become an electrician or a plumber like the rest of the lads.

Then one day his mother gave him a present that changed everything - a book about people in fashion - and it suggested to him that his dreams could come true.

He left school at 16, ending up on Savile Row, where he apprenticed at the most revered tailors, first at Anderson & Sheppard, and then at Gieves & Hawkes, learning everything about construction, tailoring and pattern cutting.

He then worked for the theatrical costumers Angels and Bermans. At 20, he got a job with the designer Koji Tatsuno before going to Milan as design assistant for Romeo Gigli. Returning to London, he earned a master's in fashion design in 1994 from St. Martin's; the designer Isabella Blow bought his entire degree collection.

From 1996 to 2001, he was chief fashion designer for the French couture house Givenchy. In 2000, his Alexander McQueen label was bought by the Gucci group; he was the group's creative director.

According to alexandermcqueen.com, at the time of his death Mr. McQueen had flagship stores in New York, Milan and London, and his collections, which included both women's and men's ready-to-wear, were distributed in about 40 countries.

Despite initial uncertainty, the parent company of the Gucci Group, PPR, announced that there would be an Alexander McQueen show in Paris in the spring of 2010, and that the brand would continue without its founder, setting off speculation over who would succeed him.

Mr. McQueen's final creations were showcased in a private show that took place on March 9, 2010, to the classical music he had been listening to as he cut and fitted the 2010 autumn collection.